It sounds to me like you're saying that the license under which code is offered (to anybody who encounters it) is independent of the license declaration attached to the project.
This makes sense to me, presuming that we still agree that the license declaration (header or license file) is the best way to communicate the license under which the code is offered. It seems to follow, then, that were saying that there are sometimes errors in the declaration, where it doesn't reflect what license the code is actually offered under (if any). Further, we're saying that this is hopefully less likely in a release, which has been vetted with greater scrutiny. Is that right? If so, then it seems to me that the question really becomes: is it sufficiently communicated by the very fact of being a snapshot (any state of the code other than in a release), that errors are possible in the license? I would think the answer is yes, personally. However, I'm not sure it really means much, because it's still reasonable for people to assume the license declaration is correct, until shown otherwise. It seems to me that the very fact that any license declaration is attached to the code at all, regardless of its state as a release or snapshot, shifts the burden of responsibility to actually demonstrate that the license does not apply. This is the reverse of the case when no obvious license declaration is made. The burden in that case is to show that the license does apply. Isn't that why we explicitly put headers on each file, in addition to the LICENSE file? To explicitly shift this burden to us in order to encourage free use of our software by others? On Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 21:19 William A Rowe Jr <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote: > On Aug 20, 2015 7:39 PM, "Alex Harui" <aha...@adobe.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > On 8/20/15, 5:27 PM, "William A Rowe Jr" <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote: > > > > >It is generally AL code all the time. I don't know where you invented a > > >'kick-in' concept, but unless the committers are violating their > > >ICLA/CCLA, > > >nothing could be further from the truth. > > > > Committers sometimes make mistakes. IIRC, Justin recently caught a > > mistake where some files accidentally got their non-AL headers replaced > > with AL headers. > > > > Large codebase contributions, especially initial podling code grants > might > > be messy as well until scrubbed and approved for an official ASF release. > > I know from experience. > > We don't disagree on this point. Sometimes, they are caught through the > release process, or by peer review. Other times, we must retract the claim > we offered. > > Nothing changes the fact that code is either offered under the AL 2.0 or > another license, unless the author/licensor changes their license > retroactively. >
